Italy's Great Cities

This 9-day trip will show you the highlight cities of Italy, covering all the notable features from St. Peter’s, the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum and the Forum in Rome to Michelangelo’s David in Florence and St. Mark’s Basilica and Doges’ Palace with the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Local Guides in these cities will answer all your questions. Also included are a special welcome dinner in a lively Roman restaurant, and stops in Pisa to admire the Leaning Tower, and in Verona to see Juliet’s balcony. Scenic rides will show you the Tyrrhenian coast, the Lombardian plains, the flat Po area, the wooded Etruscan Apennine mountain range, and Tuscany’s Chianti wine country. In Venice a private boat ride and a glassblowers’ demonstration are included

The Leaning Tower is a bell tower (or campanile), found in the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles). It is right next to Pisa’s Duomo (or cathedral), which is arguably a more spectacular sight. Construction of the tower was built way back in 1173, although it took centuries to be completed.

There is a combination of reasons for the Leaning Tower’s famous lean. The main one is the soil it is built on – it’s really crumbly and not ideally suited to having large structures plonked on top of it. A local joke is that it is called the Field of Miracles because it’s a miracle that anything’s still standing on it. It didn’t help matters when the builders, seeing the lean, decided to build the campanile higher than originally planned in a hare-brained attempt to correct it. During the 1990s, expensive repairs were undertaken, including the removal of plenty of soil underneath the tower to straighten things up a little. The Tower has now been declared safe for the time being.

It’s sad, it’s pathetic, but the main reason that people visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa is to get a picture of themselves holding it up or pushing it down. The first piece of advice for those wanting to get the traditional tacky shot is to get there early before the hordes arrive. The light will be more conducive to photography, and there is more chance of getting a shot without other wannabe Tower-pushers getting in the way. The best spot is between the Duomo and the huge line of souvenir stalls opposite – it’s possible to precariously balance on the pillars there, making it look like the subject of the photo is holding the top of the tower, not the bottom.